10 Wrestling Moments That Literally Made You Jump

In which Randy Orton somehow coexists with a Young Bucks Canadian Destroyer spot!

OMEGA GIF
AEW

Do you watch wrestling to sagely nod at a solid performance, stroke your chin, and say "That was a really tidy performance worked between two professionals who know how to preserve their body"?

Yes in the case of Bret Hart, obviously, but with Randy Orton, not so much.

You don't watch professional wrestling to detachedly analyse a Baron Corbin performance and award it praise because he successfully bores the audience. Well, you do if you're a mutant. You watch professional wrestling for the exhilaration. For the sh*t that makes you pump that fist. For the motherf*cking dopamine rush.

Hiroshi Tanahashi is a genius because he works in a slow rhythm before gradually cranking the pace and unleashing his amazing, perfectly-timed high spots. The awesome surge of a Tanahashi classic means so much more because the graduating intensity feels more like the will to win than the need to pop a crowd. Not that there's anything wrong with that, inherently. Awesome athletic specimens doing cool sh*t is cool. Agreeing with Bruce Prichard isn't.

Slow can be good, if it informs the electricity to come. Randy Orton, not so much.

Except when...

10. Randy Orton's Best-Ever RKO

OMEGA GIF
WWE

What's funny, about the subsection of fans that decry the "spot-fest" and slaver over "realism" and "psychology" is that they also moan about wrestlers not making the cover and not doing enough to win a match.

And yet, at WrestleMania 31, Randy Orton reacted to his own move like a PWG hardcore who had just witnessed a shooting star press. He marked out for himself the very second he did something other than a chinlock. High as a f*cking kite on doing something actually cool, when Orton scolds the younger generation for getting their sh*t in, methinks the Legend Killer doth protest too much.

In fairness to Orton, this was really f*cking cool.

After one of his better and brisker matches, highlighted by a scorching series of reversals at the finish, the Viper in a grand in-character moment - vipers, and this is quite funny, are more sluggish than most snakes - lulled Seth Rollins into his maw.

Drawing the curb stomp, Orton instead popped up before the point of impact and spiked Seth's prone head to the mat with the RKO.

This spot absolutely ruled in itself, but also in a "Randy Orton did that! Randy Orton!" sort of way.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and surefire Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!